A resident preceptor model improves the clerkship experience on general surgery

Background The frenetic pace of inpatient care on surgical services can create barriers to resident teaching of students. Students are often concerned that busy surgical residents will not be able to adequately evaluate their performance at the end of a clerkship. Objective To determine whether the addition of a resident preceptor would increase the satisfaction of students rotating through the general surgery portion of the required third-year surgery clerkship. Study Design Before implementing a resident preceptor model, third-year students rotating on general surgery were administered a 24-item web-based survey regarding their experience on the general surgery portion of the surgery clerkship. General surgery residents were similarly surveyed. A resident preceptor model was then introduced. Subsequent students and residents were surveyed. Presurveys and postsurveys were compared and mean responses analyzed.